A Good Man is Hard to Find - the Misfit Disciple!

Flannery O'Connor's short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, is a brilliant critique of culture Christianity. The "bible belt" of Southern USA has a sort of a culture that is imbued with a morality of being nice and fair to people, which is seen as the Christian thing to do. The one who is nice and fair to others is the good Christian man.

)'Connor brilliantly achieves this critique by the juxtaposition between two characters an old lady, a conniving, pestering embodiment of self-righteousness, representing the culture Christianity of the deep south, and the dangerous, eccentric and notorious prison escapee who calls himself Misfit representing the anti-thesis of the culture Christianity. 

Spoilers ahead...

The climax of the story is the old woman and Misfit talking to each other while Misfit has her whole family killed off. Misfit is an escapee from prison. The old woman and her family end up being caught by Misfit and his gang. As each family member is being killed off by Misfit, the old woman attempts to remonstrate with him. 

She tries to tell him that he really is a good man after all... deep within him if only he prayed he would be alright. He wouldn't have to kill her. She is trying hard to make that case that he wasn't a misfit after all. He was a good man deep within because he came from good folks. When her persuaions don't seem to work, she starts pleading, "if you pray to Jesus he will help you." 

Upon hearing "Jesus," Misfit instinctively replies that Jesus was the problem... "He threw everything off balance. If Jesus really raised the dead then there is nothing else for you to do than throw everything away and follow Him..." 

O'Connor's brilliance her is that the ruthless killer is the one who recognizes the enormity of the claim of the person of Jesus. This is juxtaposed with the good Christian lady for whom Jesus is merely about sentimental morality - of being nice and fair to people, which she isn't actually! -  it was her conniving and pestering her son that eventually led to the family meeting Mistfit.

Misfit continues... "and if He (Jesus) didn't (resurrect) then there is nothing for you to do but to enjoy the few minutes you've got left the best way you can - by killing someone or burning down his house or do some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness." 

Misfit also recognizes that if there is not resurrection then anything goes. It is the argument that Ivan Karamazov makes in Brother Karamazov - "if God is absent then all things are prohibited." 

Misfit recognizes the true claims of Jesus...
1. Jesus threw life off-balance... one cannot just course along ignoring His claims.
2. If his claims are true then one has to leave all and follow Him.
3. If his claims are not true then epicureanism and sadism the only thing that makes sense.

Jesus. O'Connor is not trying to prove the faith, but rather to critique the Christian culture which often misses the radical nature of the person of Christ by equivocating Christianity to some banal morality of niceness. Flannery O' Connor puts the words of truth in the mouth of the criminal, perhaps not unlike the criminal crucified alongside. In a Flannery O Connor sort of way one could say that Misfit is a better disciple of Christ than the grandma.